1,000 firms without compliance officers

A thousand firms do not have approved COLPs and COFAs in place after yesterday's deadline, the SRA has acknowledged.

However, the regulator said practices lacking a compliance officer would not be subject to automatic loss of authorisation.

'The revocation of authorisation on the grounds of non-compliance with Rule 8.5 of the SRA Authorisation Rules 2011 (i.e. failure to have compliance officers in place) requires a positive process, initiated by the SRA, under Rule 22,' a spokeswoman said.

The figure of 1,000 firms is higher than the 'several hundred' that the SRA estimated would be without compliance officers just before Christmas.

Only 194 firms have failed to complete the nomination process, lower than the estimate of 250.

In total, 8,800 firms had COLPs and COFAs in place by 1 January this year. An update is expected in the next few weeks.

Andrew Garbutt, director of risk at the SRA, said: 'There are some firms which came very late to the process, or who delayed providing us with further information when required to do so, consequently these have not yet received notification of our decision concerning the nomination.

'In cases where we now have all the information we need, I anticipate we will be able to make a decision shortly. We are making every effort to ensure firms and individuals know the status of their nominations.

'The SRA's continued focus in the early part of January will be to continue to work with firms to complete the approvals process, wherever this is possible.
'However, despite repeated requests, there remains a number of firms who have not co-operated with us. In these cases, we will begin the appropriate level of enforcement action, including revocation of their authorisation.'